Meatless Monday at Public Health School: an Intervention Project

Abstract

Excessive meat consumption, especially red and processed meat, is related to the increase in the incidence of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, overweight and increased risk of mortality. Besides the cost generated to health, beef production also generates impacts on the environment. Thus, the Meatless Monday Project was designed at the School of Public Health, in order to discuss the risks caused by excessive meat consumption. Data about excessive meat consumption, health and environment impacts were offered to population and a no-meat menu included on one Monday of each month within the period of the academic year of 2012 in the restaurant of the School of Public Health, University of São Paulo/Superintendence of Social Welfare. Three polls were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative throughout the project, the first was done online and the others were interviewer-interviewee. Seven months after the intervention, 73% of people said they were more aware about the harms associated with excessive consumption of meat; 42% reduced meat consumption due to the clarifications provided by the project.